John.
I daresay it’s very silly and sentimental of me. One gets used to one’s pals dying. Someone says to you: “So-and-So’s knocked out.” And you answer: “Is he really? Poor chap.” And you don’t think very much more about it. Robbie Harrison wasn’t quite an ordinary man.
Mrs. Wharton.
I was afraid you’d feel his death very much. You never mentioned it in your letters. I felt it was because you couldn’t bear to speak of it.
John.
He was one of those lucky beggars who do everything a little better than anybody else. He was clever and awfully nice-looking and amusing. I never knew anyone who loved life so much as he did.
Mrs. Wharton.
Yes, I remember his saying to me once: “Isn’t it ripping to be alive?”
John.
But there was something more in him than that. He had one quality which was rather out of the ordinary. It’s difficult to explain what it was like. It seemed to shine about him like a mellow light. It was like the jolly feeling of the country in May. And do you know what it was? Goodness. Just goodness. He was the sort of man that I should like to be.